How important are the "age" and "identity" of a moderator?

Question

This question is inspired by an answer of Asaf Karagila in this thread. According to comments beneath Asaf's answer which shows existence of a wide range of ideas about this subject, it seems interesting to know about community's opinion.

There are two important questions in Asaf's post:

Question 1: Does the real identity of a moderator matters besides all other parameters?

• If yes, what kind of benefits it has?

• If no, why?

Question 2: Does the age of a moderator matters besides all other parameters?

• If yes, what is an appropriate age range for a MSE moderator and why?

• If no, why?

Answer 1

There are quite a few underage moderators on other SE sites, I'm not sure about the exact current number, though. This goes mostly unnoticed simply because unless you check the age field in their profiles, you generally don't notice that those mods are very young, they behave indistinguishable from the older mods. Immaturity would be an argument against a moderator, simply being young isn't in my opinion.

I don't use my real name on SE sites, and I'm a moderator on two different sites. I personally would never use my real name as a moderator simply because I really don't want to deal with issues from the SE site bleeding over into my real life. I don't want to get called at home or work by some crazy user that I dealt with as a moderator, or get a bunch of nasty emails because I suspended someone (both have actually happened to moderators on the SE network).

A moderator candidate on an older site like this one should have a pretty good history of activity on the site. Even without knowing the real identity, this history should contain enough information to judge whether they are a good candidate or not.

Answer 2

The age per se is in my opinion more or less irrelevant. I have seen teenagers behave in remarkably mature ways and I have seen full professors behave in ways that seem best described as childish (on this site and elsewhere).

The bigger issue in my mind is that while moderators are not the judges on mathematical correctness it is still desirable (in my opinion) that the general level of qualification of a moderator (subject-wise) is towards the upper end of the spectrum present on the site.

There are teenagers that achieve this, but they are rare.

The real identity could be relevant to get some insight on the issue of qualification, as described above. However, there are also other ways to have proved ones qualifications.

However, some users expressed that it is relevant to them to have a "real person" attached to the mod-user accounts. As it is relevant to them, it is relevant (to a certain extent).

Answer 3

Being the user in question, let me give my point of view.

As others say, this is not a make or break issue for me. It is a preference. If someone exhibits a great deal of moderator related skill (mitigating conflict, ability to follow policies not to one's liking, participation in all sort of ways), I would mind less about who they are.

But I am using this site with my real name. And I am getting recognized for it in real life too. It is a good thing, in general. When I attend conferences, people tell me that their students told them about me, and my online exploits in answering their many questions; when visitors come to Jerusalem, I sometime hear from them that I help their students solve their homework assignments for good or bad.

This means that whatever image this website has in the eyes of people who do not participate in it, it will be associated with my image as well. Having a real life identity that I can associate with a person means not only that I can offer them a drink when I'm around, but also that I feel that I can trust them better not to screw up with my real life identity, simply because they would be screwing up their own as well.

In other SE cultures, programming, sci-fi, whatever, there are either long traditions of using a virtual persona, or not sufficient real life implications to benefit the user for using their real life persona. Naturally, on those sites moderators will be less obligated to use their real names, and since the users are anonymous it is also more likely that there might be actual spillover.

I'm not sure, and I can't quite know, how much real life spillage there has been to our current moderators, but I imagine it is less likely than other sites. (See below)

Finally, the issue of age, I am not saying that age is associated with maturity, but the younger the candidates, the higher probability that they are less-mature. I know because I felt quite mature at 17, and I can tell at 29 that I am still not as nearly as mature as I felt I was back then. And no, I didn't devolve my maturity, I just learned to be better aware of myself.

So I am less trusting of a 15 year old, especially since most teen candidates have little meta participation registered to them, making it virtually impossible for me to judge how mature they might be.

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I just ran into Does a moderator candidate need to divulge the real name? which is a similar thread for the first election held on the site.

The arguments given by T.. (which, admittedly, at the time I supported) are similar to those that are given by HDE 226868 in their answer on this page.

But it has been four years now, and I don't recall hearing about a moderator being harassed online, and we had almost all the moderators use their real names (or easily trackable, anyway). Which means that while the concern was valid, it's not as bad as expected. (See below.)

So I can't stand by that argument anymore. I don't feel that using anonymity as a shield is beneficial.

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It was pointed out in the comments here by one of the current moderators, that he was "email bombed" once, to which he responded by blocking the address and moving on.

That is not an actual consequence. This is a consequence of publishing your email on the web, including inside papers on arXiv. It means people can decide to harass you in email. To wit, I was acknowledged for some advice in a recent paper (by a user of this site, whose emails were certainly not harassment, and I am not sure if he would have found me without me using my real name), and several days after that paper was posted to arXiv, I began being harassed by a well-known crank.

It is true that I was related to that paper because I used my real name, but who's to say that if I weren't doing so, that user wouldn't have found me anyway through other means? It's hard to judge. But it does show that being mentioned in a paper can get you into the bulk spam-mailing list of arbitrary cranks.

Both myself and Andres Caicedo recount in comments on another answer that we were "harassed" by users either asking us about closure and edits, or asking questions. I don't find that to be distressing. Neither of us is a moderator, and while these might be arguments in favor of staying anonymous as much as you possibly can, and surely there are more arguments for that, I don't find them compelling as arguments for moderators being anonymous.

Having more power means that to establish trust you need more transparency. I am less likely to trust my personal information to someone who is not trusting me with their. And moderators do have access to that sort of information, and more. What can I do about that? Hide my identity, I don't want to do that. Just like anonymous users might not wish to reveal their secret identity to me, I don't want to hide mine. They are the Batmen of the site, and I'm Tony Stark, Iron Man.

What do I count as actual problem in this context? Repeated harassment which is not evadable by a few simple clicks (and I'm not talking about a killswitch for your internet service!). I prefer not to give any ideas here, though. For obvious reasons.

Finally, let me apologize for this mess of an edit. I feel it's far less coherent than the previous parts and for that I am truly sorry.

Answer 4

Biased though I am about this, perhaps I can write something interesting from the perspective of such a mod.

Question 1

As with Mad Scientist, I don't use my name on SE. I even came up with a new email, as my previous one included my name. To all on SE, I am HDE 226868, not [insert my name here]. I think the only benefit that knowing someone's "real identity" is that it builds trust. Now, I don't want the "only" to take anything away from this benefit. Trust is incredibly important between users in SE, and even more so between a mod and other users/mods.

But I don't think it's necessary to know someone's personal information for them to be a good mod. I believe William Shakespeare was referring to internet accounts when he wrote, "What's in a name?" (note: joke alert). Perhaps it's a little disconcerting to work with a user who does not use their name (particularly when their name is apparently a meaningless string of letters and numbers). But from what I've seen, trust between users depends on their actions on SE. If I behave cordially, I'll receive cordial treatment and hopefully make a good impression.

Question 2

I am quite biased here, but I think I have some reason to support my beliefs: There is not always have a correlation between age and ability/maturity.

For example, I invite you to look carefully at the next immature post you see on SE. I've seen quite a lot on Physics and other sites, and I've noticed that often people who write things like "fdagdhdkfa" or "Well, [insert obscenity here]" and give out their personal information aren't generally kids.$^1$ Likewise, those who insist on posting wacky ideas on faked moon landings on Space Exploration, write about nonsense theories on Physics, or who treat Skeptics as if it is a site for uber-conspiracy theorists aren't, in general, kids.

Now, would any of these users be elected (or chosen) - or even nominated - as mods? No. But still, there doesn't seem to be a definitive correlation between age and maturity.

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$^1$ Sure the sample is limited because many don't put their age in their profiles, but the majority who do are adults. There's still the issue that a kid might be less likely to put their age on their profile, but that might not be statistically important.

Answer 5

Personally, I choose to use my real name because I believe in (what I view to be) the mission of this website, and I do want to feel personally accountable for its quality and public image. I very much agree that it is a big plus for a moderator to be invested enough to associate MSE with his or her real life identity. It may not be essential, but it shows commitment.

It also reminds other users that I am, in fact, a human being. I have a name, I have a job, I have an email and a website. You can see what I look like in two clicks. Being faceless protects you from having to act as yourself when you wield authority, but on the other hand, people are more likely to cooperate with somebody they know. So, a benefit would be that it promotes acting in good faith, which is a important asset to a moderator.

As far as the age thing goes, I'm going to say it doesn't matter. The average young person is less mature, so, is it true that being younger correlates with lower moderation ability? Maybe, maybe not. One could make similar assertions about gender or race or anything else, and argue about whether it is pure prejudice, or if there is some truth to it. But the real answer is that trends within in a population of people are irrelevant here, because we are dealing with individuals. They're right in front of us. We should be assessing their maturity based off their behavior, not their demographics.